Congressman Cline continues to heap praise on Elon Musk’s (remember him?) Department of Government Efficiency by uncritically regurgitating DOGE’s claims of supposedly massive savings.
There are reasons to be extremely skeptical. CBS News reports:
The DOGE website reports a grand total of $199 billion saved, when factoring in real estate lease cancellations and other cuts such as personnel reductions. However, it provides no documentation for roughly half of that amount. According to DOGE, the savings equate to $1,236.02 per person in the U.S.
According to Nat Malkus, a senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, “The amount they have per person is fiction. It’s transparency theater.”
A substantial portion of those purported savings is a result of cuts to USAID. A recent study in the medical journal The Lancet says those cuts could come with a human toll. By the study’s estimates, the loss in humanitarian aid could lead to 14 million deaths in children younger than 5 years of age by 2030.
But even if we accept the $199 billion in savings as accurate (which we shouldn’t), that would still be less than 10 percent of the $2 trillion in savings that Cline strangely considered a realistic possibility last November.
In fact it’s possible that DOGE will end up costing the government more money than it saves.
It would be nice to get some answers from Cline about this (and many other things). If we can find him.
Cline Watch 